Monthly Archives: November 2007

If you haven’t had a chance to read GRIT Magazine this month, I want to share this great idea:Tools, Toys & Other Just-Right JoysGrit’s Great Big Gift Guide has something for everyone on the list.November/December 2007

Helping Hooves, (Ho, Ho, Ho!)

Last year, I gave my mother a water buffalo for Christmas; she was thrilled. Since Mom has spent a lifetime caring for others, she was happy to continue that tradition with a donation in her name to Heifer International – an organization devoted to caring for the earth and ending world hunger and poverty.

This year, why not just buck the materialistic mayhem and present your friends and family with a card acknowledging the gift of a water buffalo (or sheep, chickens, goats or geese) to a family or village in need. Needy folks around the world will be thankful for your extra effort, and you’ll be able to deduct the expense ($10 and up) from your taxes to boot.
Where to Buy: Heifer International, www.Heifer.org
Phone: 800-422-0474 (toll-free)

Also, the neighborhood association where Mom lives has some restrictions regarding home based businesses and live back yard compost production. Besides, how do you wrap a water buffalo?

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Last Wednesday night, a little before 10 o’clock, there was a big whump, the ground trembled, and headlights were shining in our window. Then, police lights and sirens, and we ran outside to see what was going on.

A police chase ended in our front yard when a kid in an old Cadillac ran into our new retaining wall. The car ran up onto our side walk and tore up my new flower beds with trial roses in them. The police had the kid on the ground as soon as he got out of the car. The kid (the driver) was handcuffed and in the back of the police car in a flash. The kid said “I have my rights,” and the officer said that he had some rights too as he pushed the driver in the back seat of the police car. Deafening sirens and flashing lights were still blaring.

The Cape Girardeau police were chasing a kid who ran from them after he was stopped for drag racing. The driver of the Cadillac turned out his lights and drove down our remote street trying to evade the police and smacked into the wall.

We took some pictures of the crash, the car was towed off our wall/sidewalk, and we called the insurance guy the next day.We are getting estimates to repair the wall and the police report should be ready tomorrow.

Still, the wall and the oil-covered sidewalk are only part of the damage. The flower beds are torn up and the newly reseeded lawn was wrecked. That leads me to the photos. This is a new Paprika Rose lying in the ruble. These blooms are what it may look like next year, if it survives. Nobody was hurt. Just a summers worth of landscaping was destroyed.